It's almost impossible for me to put words to how important it is to my heart that Ken is here. My own frequency of trips requires a lot from us as a couple. Ken's enthusiasm, support and love in sending me, time after time, is without question a corner stone of what makes it even possible.
He's the 'home front' guy most of the time. So, when it works out, on many planes of planning and scheduling, for him to be here for a visit, it's just...the best!
Our first week has been quite full just with adjusting to the time change and also having our dear friends Bill and Celine with us from Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon. Even so, there have been lots of opportunities for those 'moments' when 'something of heaven touches earth'.
In reflecting on his presence here with friends even before we left for this trip, Ken was asked to write out his thoughts about one particular moment from 2015, the last time he was here. It's a fantastic story. And I wanted to give him some space here to tell it.
Ken writes:
For about 6-9 months, I had been doing a personal word search on What Makes God Happy?
I started out with the concordance, but there were only a very few references to 'happy', and not much could be gleaned from these.
So... I took the alternative path, and said, What Makes God ANGRY or MAD, or what does God HATE? Whoa.... Immediately with only a few alternative words, I found 75 different verses. That made for some very interesting reading, and secondary research and analysis.
Taking this train of thought with me to Thailand, we are sitting in the fellowship hall / gym, and I am looking around at the faces of the 19 kids, of the cook (a widow, currently awaiting knee surgery), Suradet and Yupa, and of a trio of Bible College students also staying on the church grounds. Their faces are blissfully entranced in worship, focusing totally on God and on Jesus, and on what He has done for them.
I couldn't understand a word of what they were singing, but I knew they really meant it.
One evening, after devotions, comes Games Time. As the children line up for the game, this old guy decides that this is a good game to sit out. Included in the collage of children is one recent arrival, May. When May came to Hot Springs, just a number of months before, they took a 'welcoming' picture of her. In her picture, May looked sad, and a little bit afraid, and under-nourished.
Now, in my perspective of watching the participants line up on the other side of the gym, I hear the leader call out "GO!" [OCTOPOOT!!!! A form of tag that involves a lot of running and happy screaming.]
Running, at full speed, directly towards me is May. She is no longer afraid, she is confident, knowing that she is going to make it across the gym safely. Her face has filled out in the short time since she arrived, and she is using all of her round, healthy face to laugh out loud, while she enthusiastically races towards my side of the gym.
God very clearly tapped me on the shoulder, and said to me, "Ken, You were looking for what makes me happy?
Look around at the widows and orphans, with their bellies full, and their hearts full of joy, singing praises to Me, in a foreign tongue, and in a foreign land. That is what makes me happy."
I looked up from where I was, knowing only a little bit of where these kids had come from, from families that could not afford to send them to school, or even to feed or clothe them, and I lost it. I started crying then and there.
God is Good... All the Time All the Time ... God Is Good.
And then,, a couple of days later, I was directed to Psalm 104, verses 33-34, where God DELIGHTS in our worship. Just sort of as a Stamp of Confirmation that God is interested even in my own personal devotions.
Now I have a whole new set of words to search through to find out what DELIGHTS God.
It's so very affirming when your life-partner 'gets it' at such a deep level.
Can't wait to see what God's got for us this time out.
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